Snapshot of a Broken Road
by Silvi Henna
Summary: Dean has been gone for two weeks, 14 hours and 36 minutes.


**Title/Series:** Snapshot of a Broken Road  
**Author:** Silvi Henna  
**Fandom:** Supernatural  
**Disclaimers:** All the characters you recognize belong to their respective owners. That be Eric Kripke and Co.  
**Genre: **Angst/Pathos  
**Character: **Sam Winchester, Ruby  
**Spoilers: **Spoilers for events taking place at the end of _**"No Rest for the Wicked"**_ and a response to a thought that popped into my head when watching _**"Lazarus Rising."**_  
**Word count: **1636  
**Completed: **Yes

**Rating:** G  
**Beta:** Nope. Got a once over by BdrixHaettC.

**Summary: **_Dean has been gone for two weeks, 14 hours and 36 minutes._

* * *

**Snapshots of a Broken Road – 1/1**

_**1.**_

_Dean has been gone for two weeks, 14 hours and 36 minutes._

Sam could even say down to the second but that might be a little too much. Sam kept his mind blank as the clock _ticked tocked _slowly through the night, unconsciously breathing in tandem to the sound of the little watch perched on the bedside table next to him.

It's been almost as long since Dean was lowered down into the cold earth that was his resting place and two days since Sam last seen Bobby, unable to be in the other presence any longer. The sense of wrongness though, didn't leave Sam as he left the older man behind.

Nothing in the world could ever be right as long as his side was empty. Shaking his head, Sam stretched out on the bed resting his hands on top of his chest.

_In, out. Breath in, breath out. Don't think. Just be._

It felt like he was breathing through lungs shredded by glass, the tightness in Sam chest not letting up for even a moment. Sam has had trouble breathing since the moment Dean was gone.

_Dean has been gone for two weeks, 14 hours and 41 minutes._

And in darker times Sam had the despairing thought that he might not ever be able to breathe again.

Lord knows that he's been trying everything that came to mind in bringing Dean back to where he belonged.

Closing his eyes, as his eyes were beginning to get dry for staring up at the sealing, Sam knew he needed to sleep. He would be of no good to Dean if he collapsed due to exhaustion.

Willing himself to relax where he laid in the motel room bed, the one next to him a mirror to the gaping Dean shaped hole in him, empty, cold, the sheets disturbed in a silly fit of Sam trying to mimic how it'd looked when Dean had been with him.

Feeling himself get pulled under Sam let himself fall asleep as he knew that by the time morning came he'd had another plan of action as while he was unconscious his brain continued unabated in the endless quest of getting Dean back.

_Dean has been gone for two weeks, 14 hours and 50 minutes._

_**

* * *

**__**2.**_

_Dean has been gone for two months, 3 days, 5 hours and 10 minutes._

Ruby didn't much care for Dean. Still she felt his absence acutely if only for how it was affecting Sam. Ruby didn't think Sam was even aware that he was doing it, saying it out laud, and she guessed that she wasn't suppose to hear it, but it made her very aware of how long Dean has been gone.

It made her grimace. Flinging her now dark hair – and wasn't that a blast – over her shoulder she turned her attention to her self proclaimed charge. Sam hadn't told her what he was up to but it didn't take a frigging genius to figure it out, what with them being at a crossroad, _again_.

It wasn't the first time they'd been there since Sam found her though she had a suspicion that it might be the last.

Slipping her hands into the jeans pocket Ruby lent back against the oak tree she was standing beneath. It was a couple of days to the full moon so she had un-obscured view of the happenings.

The sound of Sam's reciting the words by heart where far more familiar then she would have either liked or wanted and she let the sound of his voice wash over her, her dark eyes narrowing, following his moves as he stood back and waited.

_Dean has been gone for two months, 3 days, 5 hours and 20 minutes._

It seamed for a moment like nothing was going to happen as the time stretched into long minutes and the furrow that appeared between Sam's brows made Ruby push away from the tree folding her arms across her chest. She kept quiet though as she felt the change in the air.

The night that had previously been filled with sounds was eerily quiet.

Ruby shook her head at the theatrics. Some things never change. She felt her lips quirk into a smirk as she saw the host that was currently housing the crossroad demon.

Gone were the taunting, the smirks, and the smugness. What was left was a very quiet demon with un-fathomless eyes. Ruby guessed that they'd finally wised up. You do not poke at a restless dragon and Sam's rage is a very terrible thing to behold.

The last demon that had laughed in Sam's face, well she was gone now, eradicated and didn't that thought elicit a shiver down Ruby's spine.

Hell is a horrible place to be, but it was still a life, a state of being. Ruby guessed that by know the word had spread and no one wants to meet the same fate. She sure has hell doesn't.

She also knew by the look in the demon's eyes what the answer was going to be this time as well.

There was fear there. And anyone in their right mind should feel fear. No one likes bad news and Sam's tolerance for them has decreased exponentially with each passing day.

Not wanting to see anymore Ruby stepped out from the shadows of the tree and made her way to the Impala parked a few yards away. If she was so inclined she would have felt sorry for them – though it was a tossup of whom she was referring to.

Settling into the passenger seat Ruby leant back and closed her eyes and not before long the driver side creaked open and the inside of the car was filled with the familiar sense of Sam.

Peaking out of the corner of her eyes she could see him hunched over the steering wheel staring intently out the windshield. His jaw was working furiously and his features were stone cold.

It seamed to be an effort for him to peal his fingers off around the death grip it had of the steering wheel but once Sam shook his head and swallowed, he barely dignified her with a glance as he peeled out of there.

_Dean has been gone for two months, 3 days, 5 hours and 55 minutes._

And it was back to the grind work. She idly wondered how long it would take before things finally fell apart. There was only so much before the cracks she could see in Sam widened so large that there was no force on earth that could keep him together. When that happened, the fallout she thought, would be something to see, something extraordinary spectacular.

And she began to believe she was going to be there to see it and that brought a smile to her face she was very careful to keep from Sam seeing.

_Dean has been gone for two months, 3 days, 6 hours._

* * *

_**3.**_

_Dean has been gone for 3 months, 8 days and 5 hours._

A lot has changed but some things remain the same. Some things - and how Sam wishes to a God he's begun to doubt even exist, that it hadn't - has changed. It's all a fucking mockery. All the things they've gone through, him, _Dean_, his _father._ He's beginning to think it was all for nothing.

And that thought always makes Sam rage; scream till his throat is sore and his voice is _gone_. Ruby always scurry to a corner whenever that happens and makes herself as small a target as possible. There's a better chance of avoiding the debris flying through the air as Sam loses his control and makes things tremble to its foundations.

In those moments Ruby believes Sam is right, that God is not only blind but deaf, and as much an absentee landlord as Lucifer himself is. Really, for how can anyone ignore that sound?

There is a silence that descends afterwards that sinks into the bones and sometimes it takes days for any of them to break it.

The things Sam has done, is willing to do, to become… it feels her with (a fierce) pride and she knows Sam wonders how low he needs to fall before he's where he needs to be.

She can't tell him, but she is beginning to think that she's able to see an end to this particular road, and isn't that a revelation?

_Dean has been gone for 3 months, 8 days and 9 hours._

And the clock is ticking down.

* * *

_**4.**_

_Dean has been gone for 4 months, 15 days and 3 hours._

A lot has changed but some things remain the same and as Sam turns around on the king side bed, always a king side bed, and watches the slumbering figure, his hand reaching across the short distance stopping only inches from touching skin, the _live_ skin, Sam wonders how long he's going to keep counting.

He's beginning to think it'll only happen when Dean stops looking at him as if he didn't know him anymore, that he's not his brother anymore.

And in the quiet of his soul he wonders why Dean stays and the part of him that wishes he could let Dean go wonders what he'll do if that ever happens. At least he can breathe now.

And in the end that's all that really matters.

**The End.**


End file.
